Sydney Gave Mike Baird A Huge Wake Up Call Over The Weekend

Heads up: There are a lot of obligatory Parks and Recreation gifs in this article.

Last Saturday the independent Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, was re-elected for a historic fourth term. Despite an attempt by NSW Premier Mike Baird to weaken her grip on power by changing the voting rules, Moore secured a massive 60 percent of the primary vote and looks set to control the City of Sydney’s agenda for the next four years.

Moore’s policies on things like the lockout laws, development, WestConnex and the environment have given her hero status amongst progressive voters in Sydney desperate for a champion to stand up to the state government’s agenda. The huge scale of her victory should be a warning sign to politicians like Baird and right-wing shock jocks like Alan Jones. Sydney voters have made it clear they aren’t fans of the Liberal party’s agenda for the city and they’re willing to make their voices heard by backing a powerful independent candidate.

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Clover vs. The Conservatives

Moore has been Sydney’s Lord Mayor since 2004 and she’s been a source of frustration for both Labor and Coalition governments the whole time. But recently it’s the conservative side of politics who have been the most transparent in their attempts to blast her out of office. In 2012 the Coalition government passed a law stopping people from serving as both councillors and state MPs. The law was quickly recognised as an obvious, and desperate, attempt to force Moore out of Town Hall, given she was both the Lord Mayor and the local state MP at the time. It became known as the ‘Get Clover’ law.

It backfired massively on the state government. Moore resigned from state parliament and went on to win the 2012 Lord Mayoral election. Her anointed successor, independent candidate Alex Greenwich, defeated the Liberal party to win the state seat of Sydney and he was re-elected in 2015. But the Liberals didn’t stop there. The state government changed the laws, forcing businesses to register to vote and granting them two votes each, proving Mike Baird is basically the Councilman Jamm of NSW politics.

The new laws only applied to the City of Sydney and were again seen as an attempt to blast out Moore. So did they work? Nup. Moore received a swing of about 10 percent compared to the last council election. So despite forcing businesses to vote and giving them twice the voting power of residents, a completely transparent attempt to try and boot Moore out of office, she won by an even bigger margin.

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What Does This All Mean For Mike Baird?

That result should be sending shock-waves throughout the state government. The Liberal candidate for Lord Mayor, Christine Forster, only managed to secure 17 percent of the vote. As far as Sydney voters are concerned, the election was a repudiation of the state government’s strategy on the lockout laws, inner-city development and a range of other planning issues. No doubt Baird will attempt to reassure himself by arguing that inner-city voters are a different group of people to those in the rest of the state. But on the issues that impact the inner city, especially on lockout laws and the WestConnex, residents and businesses have made it clear where they stand.

There are already calls for Baird to scrap his ridiculous business voting laws. At a very minimum they should ditched. But the government should consider re-evaluating its position on the lockout laws and the absurdly expensive WestConnex road project (now estimated to cost a massive $17 billion). While Moore has previously walked a fine line on the lockout issue, recognising the flaws with a blanket approach while simultaneously reassuring residents in Kings Cross she doesn’t support a full roll-back, she campaigned hard against them this election.

Her success should be a wake up call not just to Mike Baird but to all major party politicians around the country. As Tim Dick pointed out in The Sydney Morning Herald, Moore has outlasted six NSW premiers and six prime ministers. Her success shows that voters are increasingly attracted to strong, independent candidates who stick to their principles and speak up on behalf of the public, not corporate interests. All politicians should consider themselves on notice.